CANDID:

ETYMOLOGY: Latin candidus, glowing, white, pure, guileless.






Yes, there was some T.V. watching going on. So sue me. (Thanks Lisa, that is a great line--I'll have to remember to use it more myself).

And the Lucifer conversations go on. Malia informed me today that she thinks Dallin, our neighbor boy, follows Lucifer. I tried to teach her that boys are just like that (as far as playing with swords and guns and stuff) and that I'm sure he's trying really hard to not follow that mean old Lu, even though he's constantly coming at her with his "boy toys."

She also asked me today, "If the church is Heavenly Father's house, then why isn't he ever there?" Oh boy. If I could record all the questions I get bombarded with everyday...just today that I can think of..."Mom, what's inside of us?" "Mom, when I get big and get to be a mommy can I carry Tessa around?" "Mom, what does Daddy do with his students all day?" "Mom, what does this word spell?"--pointing to about 15 letters on the fridge she had put together-- oh, and another very thoughtful one--"Mom, what does heaven look like?" I'll be honest and say I'm really feeling under qualified for this position. I can only imagine when she starts bringing home calculus. OH BOY.

My little nerd---er, I mean intellectual

Tessa's giving me the stink eye, but here's Malia in her new glasses. :)

It was inevitable. Darrin and I both wear corrective lenses. Malia has been constantly shutting one eye and saying that there's "fog" in her left eye. It freaked Darrin and I out when, on Sunday, we did the "how many fingers am I holding up" test with her...fine on the right, but with the left eye she kept trying to move our hand to see. I think I'm still kind of in shock at how bad her eye is. I took her to the eye doctor today and she could not see the very biggest letter on the chart with her left eye. I can't remember the first word, but it's a type of amblyopia. Not the lazy eye kind, but where the brain starts just using the the eye with better vision and the bad eye gets worse and worse. (yes I'm a medical transcriptionist, but I can't for the life of me remember most of what the doctor said because I was kind of a state of "you really can't see that big FAT letter on the board, Malia???").

It requires wearing glasses and she will need to start patching her stronger eye in about a month after she gets used to wearing the glasses first. We have to retrain her brain to use her left eye before it gives up on it completely. The doctor put me at ease saying it is so good that we caught it now when she is still young-- I guess up until children are about 6 it is highly treatable, after that blindness is quite possible. Scarry stuff. I'm glad we caught it early. She was such a big girl. She *hates* getting water in her eyes when I wash her hair, but let the nurse put the dilating drops in without any protest. I'm so proud of her. We went to Shopko and picked out some cute glasses for her tonight 20% off--thanks Select Health!! It's really hard to know where her vision will go from here, but I feel good that we're doing all we can. It just really dawned on me today how easy it is to take for granted things like our sight.

And to end for the night I'll add the conversation Malia and Daddy has as he read her her goodnight stories:

Malia (out of the blue): If Mommy and Tessa die we can go live with somebody else probly.
Darrin: Like who?
Malia: Well, Grandma Toni lives alone and doesn't have any kids, and her husband died so you could be her husband.
**I'm glad she's thought this through so well. Sounds like Darrin and Malia will be well taken care of should I (and Tessa I guess) pass on.

She also explained to Darrin who Lucifer was and that he gets people to kill moms and children. What in the world? I'm sure her primary teacher is great and all, but what the heck is she telling my kid? I'm joking. Kids' developing minds are so interesting to me. She is so much a sponge and I love every single day of hearing what she's going to come up with next.

And just so I don't leave Tessa out...her latest thing is to get up on the coffee table and yell "tada!!!" with both arms out...she learned it from Malia's dance class. So cute.